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Sandy baby boom due at Jersey Shore

Alissa and Nichols Berse show off their daughter Madison, who was conceived while the couple was evacuated to a hotel from their Monmouth Beach, N.J., home by the approach of Superstorm Sandy.
Thomas P. Costello, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

"Happy accidents" is how expectant parents and area physicians are describing Sandy babies, which has resulted in a 34% bump in births at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, and 20% at Jersey Shore and Ocean medical centers in Neptune and Brick, respectively, an Asbury Park (N.J.) Press review of area hospitals found.

"People just love hurricanes and sex," said Richard W. Evans, an economics professor who has studied the impact of hurricanes on fertility.

In fact, Evans, who teaches at Brigham Young University in Utah, said his research may demonstrate Sandy's impact on Jersey Shore biology has been stronger than the impact of other storms in other places.

"It sounds like in New Jersey, you have potentially a much stronger effect in these counties than our study would predict," Evans said.

Dr. Robert A. Graebe, chairman and program director of Monmouth Medical Center's obstetrics and gynecology department, has no doubt that Sandy is playing a part in his numbers.

"Before the Sandy aspect hit us, we were slated to do 4,700-plus births this year, a little more than half of all babies born in Monmouth and Ocean counties," Graebe said. "Now we are seeing a little bump in what we had predicted."

So far, this month — as of July 16 — Monmouth had delivered 171 babies and with preregistration, Monmouth can expect to deliver 500 babies in the so-called birth period potentially influenced by Sandy. The July births in 2012 were just 371. That is more than 15 times the 2% bump found in Evans' research, a little more than a 34% increase over the same period last year.

"Now we go boom," Graebe said. "Now, we take off. This is way over where we would have expected to be."

“People just love hurricanes and sex.”

Richard W. Evans, economics professor at Brigham Young University

Evans believes the increased fertility is coming from those Shore residents who may have been affected by Sandy's excitement but whose lives were not turned upside down Oct. 29, or in the days that followed when National Guard and State Police manned municipal boundaries and residents needed special permission to tour the remains of their homes.

"If your lights go out and your electricity goes out but you can stay in your house, fertility increases," Evans explained. "If you are running for your life or being evacuated or flooded out, you are not making babies."

They determined that low-storm advisories such as tropical storm and hurricane watches were associated with "positive and significant fertility" while high-severity weather advisories had the opposite effect.

In other words, "for counties that received low-level warnings, we confirmed that old wives' tale" about post-disaster baby booms, Evans said.

Evacuated to hotel room

Alissa and Nichols Berse, long-time volunteers from the Monmouth Beach First Aid Squad, spent the hours before Sandy evacuating bed-bound and elderly residents from the borough. Then the couple settled into their hotel room for the night, but never quite got to viewing the DVDs Alissa had rented.

A few weeks later, Alissa, 33, and Nichols, 34, learned they were pregnant. In a life full of tragedy, including the deaths of Alissa's parents; the miscarriage in July of their first child; and the loss of their home and possessions after Sandy, it took both of them a while to get their minds around their upcoming event.

Madison Jane Berse arrived several weeks early, a few minutes after midnight July 10 and her adoring parents say they couldn't ask for a more gifted child. "I can't stop staring at her and smiling," said her dad.

Dr. Ben Morgan, who with his brother Steven runs an obstetrics and gynecology practice in Brick and Ocean townships, said attributing the uptick in regional births to Sandy may not be completely scientific.

"It is like the joke, 'what happened 9 months ago?' " said Morgan. "It was really like two weeks without power. ... It is all related."

Last fall, when the physicians began seeing a number of new patients, the moms were joking about naming their children "Sandy."

A baby was the last thing on Rob and Krysten Semerano's minds. He is 32 and she is 28, and they were married about six weeks when Sandy hit their new Brick Township, N.J., home, in more than one way. She is due any day.

They worked opposite shifts. But in the first few days after Sandy neither could go to their jobs. So after dark, they made fires and held hands and nature took its course, more quickly than either could believe.

"It gave us the time to spend together that we wouldn't have had without Sandy," she said.

Fear and intimacy

Hurricanes and other highly charged events most likely can increase the rate of sexual activity, said Long Branch, N.J., psychiatrist Christine C. Tintorer, noting catastrophes force interactions and a certain degree of physical intimacy.

Fear also "heightens arousal," she explains, a theory shared by Gary W. Lewandowski, chairman of the Monmouth University psychology department. It is easy to mistake other types of arousal for the sexual kind, he explains.

For the Berses, the timetable was Madison's — not Sandy's or anyone elses'.

"She was just ready," said Alissa. As for the rest of Madison's family, Sandy may always be part of their history but they do not intend to be defined by her.